After reading the information about the amazing lady who has been a lifelong raw food vegan, I have really been considering this lifestyle diet change. As most of you know, I am an experimenter, and always reading about something that I think might help me to be healthier and enjoy life more . A life change at my age is not going to bring about the drastic results that it might have done , had I done better at caring for my body all of my life; however, it will certainly help to give my body (and mind) a better chance to heal itself. We all know that our body seems to be able to heal itself from many things, and I believe that giving ourself life-giving foods would be beneficial for that. When I went on the vacation with Robin, we enjoyed eating out at some of the amazing places that are in Orlando, as well as on the trip going there and coming back home. It was wonderful, and I really loved the vacation; but by the time I got back home, I was so stiff and crippled up, I could barely walk, and my feet hurt so bad I could hardly bear to stand on them. Robin had been helping me to get around whenever we stopped and I had to get in and out of the MiniCooper. I dearly love seafood , as well as most other meat; but I do know that all meat and dairy are inflammatory foods, and inflammation is what causes pain from arthritis and other joint pain. After I got back, I bought some fresh pineapple, mangos, and papaya, and lots of greens and veggies (all of which are anti-inflammatory foods), and today will be my third day of not eating any meat, dairy, or other animal-based foods. The swelling and stiffness in my hands , legs, and feet is now gone, my whole body does not feel swollen and bloated anymore, and even my mind is a lot more alert. I bought the book by Dr. Michael Gregor called “How Not to Die”, which is basically a book about eating living foods and helping your body to heal itself, and last night I started reading that. I don’t know how permanent this experiment will be; but as long as I am feeling better and not having the bad arthritis pain, I am going to be testing it out for a while and see how I do with it. I explained my plan to @Bobby Cole , and so he will still be eating his regular high protein diet, and just sharing whatever he wants to of my vegetables and salads. Since he is a chef, he will probably just make himself whatever kind of meats that he wants to eat each day.
As I've mentioned I eat plant based. But since I do for ethical reasons, going back really isn't a choice. Although I don't fit in with the vegan community, whatever that is. What I'm working on now is curbing the junk food since there is plenty out there. And more and more is showing up in grocery stores such as dairy free ice creams. Are you drinking any plant based milks? I usually buy rice. My favorite is almond but a time or two it hasn't agreed with my stomach. It's only about 30 calories a cup comparted with about 110 for rice which is what I'm using now.
I make my own almond or almond/coconut milk in the blender, and I like that much better than what is sold in the stores, which just tastes like white milky water to me. Mine still has a little of the almond fiber in it after I blend it, but if I am just putting the almond milk in a smoothie or on cereal, then it doesn’t matter, and the extra fiber is healthy. As far as just drinking it by the glassful, I do not do that, and I think that a person would want to strain out the fiber if they were drinking it that way. I have no idea what the vegan community would be either, @Kitty Carmel , but I do not really care whether I fit in or not, I just want to do what is important in my life, and not what someone else might think is important. I think that we all make our food choices for reasons that are important to us, and just because two people decide to eat plant-based foods, they probably might eat totally different meals, based on their own food likes and dislikes, or health concerns. My goal is to have around 80% raw foods because I need anti-inflammatory foods to predominate in my diet, and most raw fruits, greens, and veggies are anti-inflammatory. Even though foods with white flour or sugar are plant-based, they are very inflammatory; so those are foods that I will avoid eating, but which other people who eat plant-based might add into their diet.
Agreed that there are all kinds of bad for you plant based foods. I would buy Florida Crystals sugar. It's tan colored and not as refined. But I have not replaced it since I used up my last. Also trying to avoid buying nut butters just because of the calorie density. I love them and prefer them with a spoon right out of the jar. I've been buying a whole grain bread but admit when it comes to pasta, I don't like the whole wheat varieties and I don't believe in eating something you don't like so I just haven't been cooking them lately.
This is a great example of what I was trying t say about personal tastes in food, Kitty. I have a friend in Idaho who has been eating plant-based foods, and she loves baking, and cooked foods, and both she and her husband hate vegetables. She does eat things like rice and beans, and some fruit; but mostly she cooks foods made out of grains, and they also eat a lot of peanut butter, usually in sandwiches made with ww bread. So, she eats a lot of the same foods that you enjoy as part of a vegan lifestyle. I really love fruits, veggies, and greens; and want to eat as much of my food raw as possible; so I am not even eating things like bread, pasta or peanut butter, and about the only cooked grain I am eating is some oatmeal which I mix with a fresh apple, ground flax, and chia seeds for breakfast, along with the fresh almond milk.
@Yvonne Smith Love oatmeal and hot cereals also. While I'm working on less pasta and nut butters, I am still buying bread. I bought a whole grain sprouted bread yesterday which I have been getting lately. Luckily I like vegetables and have been buying the "power greens" from Trader Joe's. Bought Brussels sprouts yesterday. Over cooked them but they are still good. I'm waiting for summer for all the berries. I won't buy out of the country produce when we can get it locally here in California in the summer. I'm willing to wait for in season stuff. I have a large blender I haven't used in years. I've been looking at the smaller ones just for drinks, smoothies and may buy one.
Sorry, but taking away my dairy and meat products just wouldn't cut it for either of us.........no matter how healthy it would be for us. There are just certain foods, like burgers, shrimp, prime rib, chops and others we just won't let go of. My wife loves cereal and that takes milk. But, good luck with want you want to achieve.
Actually, I was not suggesting that you (or anyone else) should change what they are eating, @Cody Fousnaugh . Each person makes their own choices of what foods they want to eat , as well as why they want to eat them. I also enjoy just about all of the foods that you mention, and have always eaten those foods. When I was younger, I didn’t have the problems with joint pain and arthritis that I have now, nor the issues with my heart, and I didn’t really even give consideration to whether the food I enjoyed was the healthiest foods that I could eat or not. For me, I seriously HATE it when I am so crippled up with arthritis that I can’t move my fingers properly, and I need to use my walker just to get around. I can’t take any pain medications because of my heart, and I can’t have a knee or hip replacement because of the blood clot that I had in my lungs. My options are to either suffer with the pain, or to take care of my health and eat foods that are not inflammatory and cause pain. Faced with that choice, eating healthy foods definitely outweighs eating foods just because I like them. When we were kids, our parents would tell us to eat our veggies, because little kids do not understand to make healthy choices. As an adult, I should not be making choices the same way as a 5 year old makes them.
Sorry, totally understand. I get it daily in both shoulder, most likely from the rotator cuff surgery I had in each. Ortho Surgeon calls mine Osteoarthritis. And compared to yours, mine is pretty mild, but still “achy and nagging”. Wife has it in a couple of her fingers. We take Turmeric 500 daily, but I just started Turmeric 500 with Back Pepper. I also take a VA Prescrition of 800 mg Ibuprofen and sometimes a 50mg Tramadol from the VA also. It all helps, but I haven’t get the heart problems you do. Again, sorry.
Nobody is talking fish. I am not a big fan of seafood, but it does appear to have some healing powers. Recent studies have shown that fish, particularly those from northern and far southern waters (oily fish) have 'powers to ease the pain of arthritis. While most of our vitamins are contained in vegetables, humans seem to need animal substances to process them unless you take supplements that have already prepared the nutrients for absorption. When I lived in rural Alaska, we ate salmon 3-5 times a week because that is what we had. Even though my wife had over 60 ways to prepare the fish, I got so sick of eating salmon that I lost any taste for it that I once had.
This is a good point, @Don Alaska , and I think that many of the animal-based foods have good benefits as well. What I am doing is experimenting to see how much I need to eat of each kind of food catagory, and still not inflame my body. It seems to me that an 80% guideline of raw/plant-based foods should give me enough of the anti-inflammatory foods that having some meat, eggs, and dairy will not be a problem; but I am just going to start out as close to 100% as I can and then work backwards from there. Part of the problem that I see with animal foods has to do with the terrible way that the animals are raised and butchered. They are kept in tiny cages/pens where they can’t move around, and fed foods with growth hormones and lots of antibiotics in them, as well as grains that are genetically modified. Milk and other dairy products go through about the same thing because of how the dairy cows are fed and kept, plus then the milk is altered by pasteurization and super homogenization. Same idea with chickens and eggs. If I had a few backyard chickens and a milk goat, I don’t think that I would have any problem with eating the eggs and making kefir or yogurt from the milk.
Some predictable responses have shown up. I'm not out to change anyone either. I can say though I eat plenty of cereal with rice milk.
That is a good point also. For much of our life here in Alaska, we have had dairy goats, chickens, turkeys, sheep, ducks, geese, and even rabbits for a while. When we had children at home, we got much of our food as organically as possible but we are more lax now as we are getting older and less capable. Organic and grass-fed meat is available in most locations, and dairy products as well. Chicken is more difficult to find, but easier to raise and butcher for yourself. I don't really hunt any more, but our sons provide us with wild meat when they get an animal. We drank raw goat milk for many years, but started pasteurizing when many of our children left, as goat milk is not as stable as cow's milk and deteriorates more quickly. Now we are limited to large vegetable gardens and greenhouses, but that still provides much of our food. I blend my own mineral fertilizer to compensate for the soil deficiencies here, and we sell or donate our surplus.